Electronic device manufacturers strive to produce a rich interface for users. Conventional devices use visual and auditory cues to provide feedback to a user. In some interface devices, kinesthetic feedback (such as active and resistive force feedback) and/or tactile feedback (such as vibration, texture, and heat) is also provided to the user, more generally known collectively as “haptic feedback” or “haptic effects”. Haptic feedback can provide cues that enhance and simplify the user interface. Specifically, vibration effects, or vibrotactile haptic effects, may be useful in providing cues to users of electronic devices to alert the user to specific events, or provide realistic feedback to create greater sensory immersion within a simulated or virtual environment.
In order to generate vibration effects, many devices utilize some type of actuator. Known actuators used for this purpose include an electromagnetic actuator such as an Eccentric Rotating Mass (“ERM”) in which an eccentric mass is moved by a motor, a Linear Resonant Actuator (“LRA”) in which a mass attached to a spring is driven back and forth, or a “smart material” such as piezoelectric, electro-active polymers or shape memory alloys.
Traditional architectures provide haptic feedback only when triggered effects are available, and must be carefully designed to make sure the timing of the haptic feedback is correlated to user initiated gestures or system animations. However, because these user gestures and system animations have variable timing, the correlation to haptic feedback may be static and inconsistent and therefore less compelling to the user. Further, device sensor information is typically not used in combination with gestures to produce haptic feedback.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved system of providing a dynamic haptic effect that includes multiple gesture signals and device sensor signals. There is a further need for providing concurrent haptic feedback to multiple devices which are connected via a communication link.